Being Citybroke is about perspective. It’s about seeing glitter in the gutter and a sense of humor when life is giving you everything you don’t exactly want and you’re hanging on for a dream that you sometimes can’t remember.It’s not sales or survival - it’s an electronic letter from the trenches. It’s what suits who make $60K in at age 24 can’t even imagine. It’s Freedom. It’s Poverty. It’s Broken. It’s Beautiful.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Fact Health Insurers discourage insured people from taking advantage of their benefits by making it almost impossible to understand what their benefits are. They do this by constantly changing policies and making what should be a simple "you're covered" proposition to an "if A then B unless G or Q or preexisting condition" then "you're screwed."Consequently, many people are concerned that a medical visit could have unforeseen costs so they stay away from the doctor and insurer's expenses go down.Ah-HA! Sweet Revenge. Most companies now offer Flex Spending accounts. While these seem to be great for insurers and the companies who buy the insurance, these are actually being abused all the time because covered parties can buy as many boxes of contacts or pairs of $500 Chanel eye glasses as they want. (Not surprisingly, I have never heard of anyone draining their FSA for an extra root canal. Veneers or whitening, most likely if they could - they would.)Lenscrafters is a major retailer that has a Google ad that simply reads "FSALenscrafters.Use your flexible spending account at LensCrafters before it expires." Click through and it takes you to their FSA web page that encourages you to use up the rest of your money on an extra set of glasses.I bet Insurance companies will catch on to how they are beefing up retail eye glasses companys' bottom lines and do one of 2 things: change visual coverage in a scary way or start buying up eye glass shops. After all, a problem is an opportunity upside down. The markup on contacts and eye glasses is a profit margin their stockholders will appreciate.